Productivity advice can feel like navigating a jungle. From elaborate morning routines to apps that promise to transform our lives in three swipes, the sheer volume of suggestions can overwhelm rather than help. But let’s strip it all down to its essence—the one thing all productivity hinges upon: the degree of friction.

Friction is anything that interrupts the flow of our work.

Work, in this context, is a sequence of tasks we decide we want—or have—to complete within a given timeframe to achieve a defined objective.

Work includes what we do “at work,” but also encompasses anything we don’t do purely for the joy of it. Grocery shopping, cleaning, studying, earning money, and training our bodies typically qualify as work. Watching TV, going for a walk, or playing a football match typically does not.

Having sex, walking the dog, visiting family, or breathing may be work or not, depending on whether we feel obligated by our partner, pet, relatives, or a constrained respiratory system.

Let’s explore the concept of friction with an example: having lunch.

A productive approach might involve knowing what to prepare, how much time we have, and having all ingredients and tools ready. But often times, it unfolds more like this:

We don’t know yet what to prepare. Once we decide, we realize we’re missing ingredients and have to improvise. We start cooking but can’t find the scale to measure the flour. The pan we need is dirty in the sink. While finally sitting down to eat, a notification on our phone diverts our attention—a friend sent an “urgent” video. We glance at the clock and suddenly realize we’re already late to catch the subway for a doctor’s appointment we forgot about. We rush, stuff two spoons of hot rice into our mouths, spilling half of it over the table. When we return in the evening we find our stomachs empty, the rice dry, and the kitchen dirty.

Friction is the silent, obscure productivity killer. It lurks between the individual tasks we perform in a sequence, which we call “work.” Friction is the energy, time, or effort required to bridge gaps between these individual tasks.

Types of Friction

Here are the most common types of friction:

1. Media Breaks: Shifting between different modes, formats, or tools. Thinking about a recipe, drafting it on paper, and typing the ingredients into our phone’s shopping list contains two media breaks.
2. External Distractions and Interruptions: An external stimulus that diverts attention from the task at hand and either stops the activity or decreases focus, such as emails, notifications, phone calls, visitors, or a cluttered workspace.
3. Internal Distractions: Random thoughts, emotions, or sensations that pull our attention away from the task or activity athand, e.g. tiredness, daydreaming, or anxiety.
4. Mindset: Our level of willingness to do the work, including any subconscious resistance that erects barriers for us.

Overcoming friction and regaining focus costs time and energy. Every task switch, media change, and additional choice (“Should I answer this email now or later?”) creates a break of momentum and a hard reset. Restarting requires effort that could instead be used to move forward.

Although they might feel empowering at first, many predefined productivity methodologies fail because they add complexity, causing us to manage the system rather than addressing the root causes of inefficiency and ineffectiveness. The key to increasing productivity lies in identifying and minimizing the frictions unique to our individual lives.

Eliminating Friction

The secret to becoming more productive is practicing a continuous feedback loop: identifying frictions and implementing small, incremental changes to our habitual workflows. For example, if we want to make cooking lunch more productive, we consider:

1. What’s the objective? We must be conscious of a clear goal. Most of the time we think that we have a goal while all we truly have are hopes and dreams. A goal is a state of reality that is different from the current state of reality, formulated in present tense, defined in quantity and/or quality, and with a set deadline. Instead of “cook lunch,” we say, “I’m eating chicken breast with rice and steamed vegetables by 1 p.m.”
2. Which tasks need to be done, and in what order? If rice takes longer to cook than meat, we should prepare it first. All necessary tools and ingredients must be readily available.
3. Where do we typically lose momentum, and why? Maybe recipe ideas elude us. Perhaps tools are always in the dishwasher. Maybe the rice regularly burns.
4. What’s the simplest incremental change to prevent friction? We could start a recipe notebook to never run out of ideas, commit to load and start the dishwasher as our last daily task, or research better rice-cooking methods. We yould also commit to not enter the kitchen with our phones.
5. How can we make practicing repetition effortless? Maybe we place the notebook with a pen near the stove and put sticky notes on the kitchen door, the dining table, or the night stand—“Dishwasher!”. Cooking time can be phone-charging time—keeping it in another room, of course.

It sounds annoying and possibly like an overkill, but I will say that keeping some form of written record of this process—like a diary—can be transformative. The bare minimum certainly is jotting down keywords on sticky notes: “Buy chicken breast, rice, paprika, Monday after work”, “Eat, wash dishes, clean counter”, “Your phone can’t enter this room!”

Creating a World Without Friction

Once we know how to streamline one workflow, we can expand this process to others. If the entire day feels cluttered, it’s because it consists of many overlapping, friction-laden workflows.

We aim to extend the exercise outlined in “Eliminating Friction” to additional workflows that shape our days—but not unless we have harnessed at least one of our daily workflows.

To do this, we pick one of our existing workflows—preferably one where we already feel relatively confident or one that holds the greatest importance in our routine.

Although it might be tempting to tackle intricate, interconnected workflows such as “planning a dinner party” or “running for a political office,” starting small and getting our own private-life shit together first is far more effective. As some wise man—whose name escapes me—once said:

Don’t start with changing the world. Yes, change the world. But change your own life for the better first before you attempt to impose your ideas on the whole world.

By continually identifying and reducing friction in our daily workflows, we discover that productivity isn’t about adopting new systems but about building the gruesome habit of implementing small, incremental changes in our daily activities.

Don’t buy any more productivity programs and systems—create your own.

⏤Ferdinand

✨ Sunday’s Sparks

📝 Article: Notes on “Taste”

Essay that explores the meaning, the purpose, and the fallacies of taste. How does one develop taste? How has its manifestation been changing over time? And what has it to do with correctness and snobbism?

Taste is something we can and should try to cultivate. Not because taste itself is a virtue, per se, but because I’ve found a taste-filled life to be a richer one. To pursue it is to appreciate ourselves, each other, and the stuff we’re surrounded by a whole lot more.

Appreciation is a form of taste. Creation is another. They are often intertwined, but don’t have to be. Someone could have impeccable taste in art, without producing any themselves. Those who create tasteful things are almost always deep appreciators, though.

Though taste may appear effortless, you can’t have taste by mistake. It requires intention, focus, and care. Taste is a commitment to a state of attention.

One of the facts to be reckoned with is that taste tends to develop very unevenly. It's rare that the same person has good visual taste and good taste in people and taste in ideas.” The sought-after interior designer may not mind gas station coffee. The prolific composer may not give a damn about how they dress.

Taste is closely intertwined with snobbery. And indeed, many snobs (coffee snobs, gear snobs, wine snobs, etc.) often have great taste. But I would say that taste is the sensibility, and snobbery is one way to express the sensibility.

Creating forces taste upon its maker.

📚 Book: When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi

Poignant memoir that chronicles the life and death of a neurosurgeon who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer at the age of 36. Paul Kalanithi reflects on his journey from medical student to a practicing surgeon and then a patient facing his own mortality. The book explores themes of life, death, and the meaning of existence, as Kalanithi grapples with the transition from doctor to patient and contemplates what it means to live a meaningful life. “When Breath Becomes Air” is a deeply moving narrative that offers readers a profound meditation on the fragility of life and the enduring human spirit in the face of death.

Deeply moving and forcing you to confront death yourself by taking you on the ride of his journey.

While all doctors treat diseases, neurosurgeons work in the crucible of identity: every operation on the brain is, by necessity, a manipulation of the substance of our selves, and every conversation with a patient undergoing brain surgery cannot help but confront this fact. In addition, to the patient and family, the brain surgery is usually the most dramatic event they have ever faced and, as such, has the impact of any major life event. At those critical junctures, the question is not simply whether to live or die but what kind of life is worth living. Would you trade your ability—or your mother’s—to talk for a few extra months of mute life? The expansion of your visual blind spot in exchange for eliminating the small possibility of a fatal brain hemorrhage? Your right hand’s function to stop seizures? How much neurologic suffering would you let your child endure before saying that death is preferable? Because the brain mediates our experience of the world, any neurosurgical problem forces a patient and family, ideally with a doctor as a guide, to answer this question: What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?

🎵 Music: Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor Adagio Sostenuto

The piece I might pick for my funeral. Although I wouldn’t impose on the mourning congregation to listen to the entire 30-minute composition, I highly recommend you take the time yourself. It’s one of the greatest piano and orchestra pieces ever written.

Sergei Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, composed in 1900. Here the second movement Adagio sostenuto.

💡 Sunday’s Wisdom

Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are. Some men are slow to take offense, which may make you misjudge the thickness of their skin, and fail to worry about insulting them. But should you offend their honor and their pride, they will overwhelm you with a violence that seems sudden and extreme given their slowness to anger. If you want to turn people down, it is best to do so politely and respectfully, even if you feel their request is impudent or their offer ridiculous. Never reject them with an insult until you know them better; you may be dealing with a Genghis Khan.

From The 48 Laws of Power by ROBERT GREENE.
Captured and resurfaced using the phenomenal Kindle reader.

Did you enjoy this issue? If you draw value from Sunday Sparks please consider contributing to this publication’s financial freedom.
Flows straight into content, not coffee.